Thank you for your interest in learning more about how this project came together.

Here are the sparks that helped create the idea of Personal Continuity Planning™:

Covid-19: I actually started working on this project during what I called “CoronaChaos” – the Covid-19 pandemic. I contracted a bad case and spent 6 weeks in bed. That gave me plenty of time to reflect on my life and the threat to it. I came to grips with my mortality and found a refocused desire to be a good steward of my life. Like many of us, I lost friends during the pandemic and saw firsthand how most of them were unprepared. One day they were fine; the next day they were on a ventilator. A few days later, they passed. It just happened so quickly for large numbers of people. Most of us don’t really like to talk about death, but this coronavirus sparked some much-needed conversations and the realization that life is a precious gift - much shorter than we desire.

Tornado Alley: I also live in Norman, Oklahoma, right in the heart of Tornado Alley. My city is home to the National Weather Center. I’ve seen firsthand how quickly a tornado can develop and take 100’s of homes right down to the concrete slabs. Who knows where all their “stuff” went? They rarely recover their important possessions. I began to pay more attention to the sheer number of other natural disasters – wildfires, earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, etc. where people see their homes and possessions destroyed, and sometimes lose their lives.

Scouting Background: As an Eagle Scout, the Boy Scouts of America (pre-scandals/loss of integrity) ingrained the “Be Prepared” motto into my life. I’ve spent a lifetime trying to anticipate challenges and be ready for whatever scenarios might create a crisis in my life.

Aging: As much as I don’t want to admit it, I’m getting older. It’s a natural part and progression of life. With so many distractions, interests, relationships, responsibilities, accounts, hobbies, possessions, etc. it’s HARD to keep up with it all. Since we have a family history of Alzheimer’s disease, there’s always a gnawing fear that someday it may show up for me. So, how will I prepare if that happens? And even if it doesn’t, how can I get organized, simplify and manage the many elements of my good life? That’s part of what’s driving me to help people collect, organize, protect and evaluate their Critical Information, Important Documents and Cherished Memories.

Family and Friends: Over the past few years, I’ve seen many family members and friends who experienced some type of crisis and weren’t prepared. That sparked and reinforced a great desire to figure out a better way, a system to help them. I’ve been helping my own 80+ year old parents as they begin what I’m calling the Winding Down™ process. They want to be good stewards and not leave us a big fat mess. Then it got even more personal when I was kindly challenged by my own spouse to not leave her and my 3 kids a bigger fat mess. Since I’m a confessed “Paper Hoarder”, I had to admit that sorting through my piles and piles of paper would not be a nice parting gift. I needed to de-clutter and get organized.

Innovator: With 20+ years of Innovation expertise (speaking, training, consulting), I began to look at personal disaster preparation in a different way. I wanted to create a secure, portable, customizable system, along with valuable resources and tools that are easy to use IF you do the work.

Speed/Abundance of Information and Change: The information revolution has created all kinds of great benefits, along with some challenges. The amount of information generated every day is overwhelming. With the internet, people are generating enormous amounts of content. Data is overflowing. Our attention spans and memories are shrinking. In order to access much of this data, websites require user names and passwords. I’ve got over 500 different passwords. Plus, we are a mobile society. Many people move, change phone numbers, spouse, jobs, churches, you name it … all the time. So, just keeping up with how to get hold of friends, family, associates, prospects, suppliers, repair people, etc. takes a LOT of continual effort.

Intensive Research: As a result of these factors, I invested more than two years of research pouring over 100’s of books, workbooks, articles, blog posts, videos, etc. I’ve interviewed and/or surveyed over 100 people to see what they needed, wanted, liked, and didn’t like. I drafted multiple versions of the workbooks and made many revisions. Although there are some really good strong, helpful materials out there, each one was missing something important or created unnecessary risk by their approach. I wanted something that:

• Was simple, yet able to be updated as life (and information) changes.
• Served as a central collection vault - safe, secure, confidential, portable
• Catalyzed my efforts to get organized and feel more in control of my “stuff” Wasn’t in “the cloud” and at risk from hackers by storing my confidential information online
• Was in a format that is always legible, printable, customizable, modifiable
• Reasonably priced in comparison to the value of my possessions and risk of loss

I hope this was a helpful description of the origin story of the Personal Continuity Planning theme. More than that, I hope something resonated with your own concerns and desire to Be Prepared.